Diego Fagundez fine off bye as Revolution tie

Saturday

Aug 16, 2014 at 10:28 PM

By Carl Setterlund CORRESPONDENT

FOXBORO — While the rest of the New England Revolution roster used last weekend's bye to get healthy and assess the reasons behind the Revs' summer slump, Leominster's Diego Fagundez was on a plane to South America.

The 19-year-old continued to flirt with the possibility of representing his native Uruguay, joining the country's under-20 squad for a pair of games against Peru.

Because they were both friendlies, Fagundez technically is able to play for the United States, although he still likely has several years left in the immigration process, gaining U.S. permanent resident status in October 2013.

Fagundez saw action in both games — going the full 90 minutes in the second — and the experience served him well Saturday night. He broke out of a personal 10-game offensive drought in MLS, setting up Charlie Davies' first-half goal Saturday night in a 1-1 draw with the Portland Timbers in front of 16,409 at Gillette Stadium.

"The game was a little bit of a tale of two halves," Revs coach Jay Heaps said. "The first half went the right way. The second half, we let them back in, and that's disappointing because when we have a team that you think you can put away. We've got to start putting them away, and we had the chance in the first half."

After going without a goal for nearly three years, Davies — a former star at Boston College — has turned back the clock of late, scoring in the Revs' last two games.

Fagundez and Davies were in tune for the 27th-minute go-ahead strike as the former carried the ball down the left side and threaded it through to Davies with a well-timed ball that just avoided the Timbers' offside trap. Davies sent it just inside the far right post to beat goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts.

New England (8-12-3) couldn't hold onto the lead, however, as Englishman Liam Ridgewell came through for Portland (7-7-10) with his first MLS goal in the 65th minute.

The equalizer came off a long solo run by the Barclays Premier League veteran, who signed with the Timbers as a Designated Player at the end of June.

Any points are welcome for the rudderless Revs, who had lost nine of their previous 10 games to fall into seventh place in the Eastern Conference.

The Revs have done well at home, getting at least a point in seven of 11 games this year in Foxboro. They'll hope to continue that next Saturday at home against Chivas USA, which sits at the bottom of the Western Conference. Saturday began a key stretch for New England, with five of the next six games at home.

Along with squandering a chance for a win against the Timbers, the Revolution got some other bad news as Kevin Alston injured his right hamstring in the run of play leading to the Davies goal. Alston had to substitute off in the 28th minute.

The return to form for Fagundez was one positive the Revs can take away.

It was the second time the Montevideo-born Fagundez has played for the Uruguayan U20s. He played in another friendly against Peru in 2012.

Although a potential future with the U.S. national team is still years away, Fagundez said on Wednesday he wanted to "leave both doors open" for now.